Individuals who suffer from speech, voice and cognitive disorders, most often are afflicted with other primary handicaps such as hearing impairments, visual impairments, or mental incapacities due to birth defects, disease or stroke. In addition to these handicaps there may also be associated limitations in decision processes and in motor sensory control of muscles and limbs. One or more of these handicaps can significantly hinder the normal development or capability of verbal communications. Since speech is the most common method of communications in our society, a priority should be placed on developing verbal communication skills for verbally handicapped persons, before resorting to non-verbal communication methods such as sign language.
It is important that early attention be given to the development of a verbally handicapped persons speech skills, particularly in the case of children. Failure to do so can extend the period required to learn speech skills and may even limit an individuals ability to develop verbal skills to their full potential. Learning other non-verbal methods of communication such as sign language and symbolics, although sometimes easier to learn, can cause a person to use these techniques as primary methods of communication, which can further hinder the development of verbal speech skills.
The development of verbal communication skills for those with verbal handicaps requires that an individual, usually a speech pathologist or therapist, spend long hours one-on-one with the handicapped person. During this time the therapist concentrates on verbal exercises such as basic vocalization or sound production; control of voice duration, intensity and pitch; production of vowels, consonant and diphthongs sounds; phonetic and phoneme sounds; and finally the eventual sounding of words and sentences. Other exercises used to reinforce verbalizations include associations with objects for verbal reinforcement; the pairing of motor actions with vocal activities; and choice making and turn taking. Throughout the period of this therapy the therapist must be consistent in the production of sounds, must continuously repeat sounds and exercises for reinforcement, must encourage the handicapped person for responses, must reward correct responses and provide constructive feedback for incorrect responses, and must keep the attention and interest of the verbally handicapped person. The continuous concentration and patience required by this activity can be very stressful to the therapist. This can mean that the quality and quantity of therapy provided to the handicapped person could be compromised.
To remedy the problem of providing quality instruction for language skills development, without placing extreme demands on the therapist, several computer based speech development systems have been developed for the handicapped. However, those presently existing devices that have been developed fail to entirely meet the needs of verbally handicapped persons and their therapists. The reasons for this failure include the quality of speech reproduction provided, the accessibility of the systems to a wide range of users, the emphasis placed on speech production as opposed to speech development, the limited flexibility provided to customize exercises, the dependency on computer skills and standard keyboard interfaces, and the cost.
The currently available telephonic and computer based speech systems for the verbally handicapped are primarily devices to allow a deaf or hearing impaired person to communicate with a hearing person. These systems are not designed to assist in the development of basic verbal skills for a handicapped person. Such systems include TDD's (telecommunication devices for the deaf) and symbolic communication devices. TDD's allow a deaf person and a hearing person to use a typewriter like device to send messages back and forth over a telephone line, with a speech production system often used to verbally communicate the messages sent by the deaf person. Such devices have been described in Feinson, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,754,474, Jun. 28, 1988 and James, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,927, Mar. 17, 1987. Symbolic communication devices likewise allow a verbally handicapped person and a hearing person to communicate with each other, with the handicapped person using a symbolic keyboard instead of the typewriter like device to create the messages. Such a device was described in Little, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,845, Mar. 13, 1990.
The systems available for speech development range from a simple microcomputer device with one or two words of vocabulary for simple speech development, through to dedicated computer based systems that can cost thousands of dollars. The "Speak and Spell" and the "Speak and Read" products from Texas Instruments are examples of devices for simple speech development. Although inexpensive, these devices lack the range of exercises and quality of speech required for serious speech development. The more expensive dedicated computer based systems require that the user have a dedicated computer available along with a speech production system. Examples of these systems are the "Break Through To Language" software package that uses an Apple II computer along with a Touch Window speech synthesizer, and the "First Words" software package that uses an Apple II computer along with an Echo speech synthesizer. In addition to being expensive, the number and size of hardware components used with these systems do not allow the user to easily move the system from one location of use to another. The quality of speech provided by the systems sited is also poor in order to keep costs down.
It is desirable, therefore, to have a low cost and more highly efficient method and device that can provide easily accessed, flexible and high quality computer generated speech to assist a therapist in training and motivating a verbally handicapped person of any age in the basics of speech and cognitive communications skills. Such a device and method would allow a verbally handicapped person to more easily and efficiently address impairments including voice jitter, speech rate, prosody, stress, accent, pronunciation, phonological performance, stuttering, auditory skills, and general articulation, as well as decision making and word/object associations. Such a device should be easily transported from one location to another to allow a therapist or a handicapped person to use the method and device in any convenient location in a home, school, hospital, clinical treatment centre or institution. Such a method and device would provide a therapist with a greater range of speech development exercises to assist in the clinical, diagnostic and educational development of speech skills for the verbally handicapped, as well as reduce the stressful demands normally placed on the therapist. The therapist would therefore be more alert, productive and have the time to concentrate on applying those therapy skills that require more personal contact. Likewise the variety of exercises available with such a device would maintain the attention and concentration level of a verbally handicapped person over a longer period of time, and reduce their mental stress as well. Such a device would provide the verbally handicapped person with easy access to speech therapy exercises at almost any time of the day, with or without the presence of a therapist. Conventional treatment requires that the therapist is always in control of the verbally handicapped person which is a problem for some patients. Such a device would allow the verbally handicapped person to be given control in exercising speech development exercises on their own. It would also allow the verbally handicapped person to develop verbal skills early so that they could more easily communicate within everyday society. The method and device would also provide wide access to a computerized speech development system by many verbally handicapped persons who otherwise would not have such access. Considering the wide range of easily accessible and high quality speech exercises that would be made available, such a device would also have applications for the early development of speech for children who do not necessarily have any particular verbal handicaps.